The bronze pen was still slick with river silt when Archon Valerius picked it up with his uninjured right hand.
Beside him, Mayor Harlan was trembling so wildly that his junior scribe had to steady his wrist as he dipped the steel nib into the pool of blended vermilion and black ink.
“Under the eyes of the two suns,” Archon Valerius said, his voice ringing with newfound, resolute clarity across the bridge roadway. He pressed the bronze nib to the calfskin thick parchment, signing his name in sweeping royal cursive: Gaius Thorne-Valerius, Prefect of the Sun-Crown.
Mayor Harlan followed, his steel pen scratching the final flourish: Harlan Vance, Mayor of the Grand Ducal Municipality of Val-Khorat.
Diplomat Ren stepped forward, raised the Split Wax Seal of the Twin Crowns. Then he brought it down with bone-shaking finality onto the red and black pool of wax binding both signed names together.
The Treaty of Overlapping Sovereignties was legally ratified.
A deep, ringing thrum traveled through the bridge. The shimmering seam of heat that had wavered between the iron frame stands and the marble arches relaxed. It settled into a stable, durable junction where the two architectures bonded on an atom-deep level. The gaslamps and the solar lanterns flickered once all at once. It burned with matching, steady radiance.
